


The Shame of It All

by oselle



Series: The All Saints Saga [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Nudity, Unrequited longing, self-gratification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29912226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oselle/pseuds/oselle
Summary: It's 2015 and the Croatoan apocalypse grinds on, but an abandoned mansion in the Tennessee hills offers a rare night of refuge. And a chance for a warm bath, which proves to be quite hard on Castiel. Part 3 of the All Saints Saga.
Relationships: Endverse Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: The All Saints Saga [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199570
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	The Shame of It All

In the gray and wet evening after they had been driving for three days from the smoking ruins of Birmingham they found the house, set back into that mountainous country and well hidden by the trees so that only one chimney had been visible through the fog, red brick almost of a color with the trees. It was not an old house but a large one, built to grand size by someone with money and lordly aspirations and now wholly abandoned. There were eleven people in the group including Dean and Cass himself and four of them including Dean went in first to make sure the house was secure. When they gave the all clear the small party emerged from their trucks and climbed the stairs and for a moment they all stood huddled in the entry hall, stinking in their damp coats and sweaters. From the top of the curving staircase the day's last light fell upon them through an arched cathedral window and Cass thought that the house itself must have been outraged by the intrusion of this cold and filthy band of refugees.  
  
* * *  
  
In observance of the cold nights in these mountains the builder of the house had installed fireplaces in many of the rooms and these were no decorative accents with polite gas jets but great brick hearths for burning wood. It was a house built as if for some earlier century and not an age of central heating and electricity. Or perhaps in premonition of some disaster to come. The builder was not there to explain or know the perfection of his design.  
  
There was a dry woodshed attached to the kitchen and at least a whole cord of seasoned wood inside. They filled the kitchen fireplace with logs and kindling and set them on fire and Frank took the bellows from the iron stand and fanned the flames into a blaze. They stood there and stared at it. All of them, even Dean. Around them the fittings of a rich man's kitchen stood useless in the firelight. The pendant lights with their glass shades. The brushed pewter faucets. The monstrous Viking stove. Of these things, only fire remained.  
  
* * *  
  
They ate in a semicircle around the fire and then some of them just lay down on the floor and fell asleep. Dean wiped his mouth and stood up with his rifle and said that he was going to see what else there was to the place. Everyone who was still awake looked too tired or too warm to move and Dean raised an eyebrow at Cass and Cass got up and went with him.  
  
They found a well-stocked pantry and Cass watched Dean sizing up and mentally cataloguing the stores.  
  
"All of this goes with us," he said and Cass nodded. Dean opened one of the coffin freezers and a stench of rotting meat belched out and he slammed it shut. " _That's_ a fucking waste."  
  
They went outside and stood on the backporch and Dean swept his flashlight through the darkness.  
  
"What the fuck is that?" he said and before Cass could answer Dean was down the steps and across the field. Cass followed him. A few yards from the house they came to what Dean had picked up in his flashlight and Dean said, "Holy shit." It was a cast-iron water pump set upon a concrete platform, the handle elaborately wrought and untouched by rust with an iron bucket of similar design at its feet, full of rainwater.  
  
"Do you think it works?" Cass said.  
  
"One way to find out. Grab that bucket and prime it."  
  
"What?"  
  
"The bucket. You have to prime the pump to get it going." Cass stared at him and Dean put his rifle down and handed him the flashlight and said, "Here, you pump this thing and I'll prime it."  
  
Dean raised the bucket and poured water on the spout and said, "Start pumping it." Nothing happened and Dean held off and then poured some more water and did it again and then suddenly water burst from the pump with a gurgling rush and Dean actually laughed. Cass couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Dean laugh that way.  
  
Dean set down the bucket and put his hand under the pump and raised it to his mouth and drank.  
  
"Damn," he said. "That's _cold_. Sweet but cold." He splashed water on his face. "Everyone's gonna be real happy when they see this." He straightened up and dried his hands on his jacket. Cass stopped pumping and the flow of water eased off to a trickle and he collected some in his hands and drank and the water was sweet, just as Dean had said. The trickle became a drip and then stopped. They stood there and stared at the pump. Spellbound. Then Dean said, "Well, I know what I'm gonna do."  
  
* * *  
  
There was a smaller room on the first floor like a den or private study and it also had its own fireplace and Dean built up the fire in there and set the iron bucket of water in the flames and then left. Cass sat there by himself. He looked at his hands on his knees. He looked at the bucket in the fire. After a little while Dean came back with a dishtowel slung over his shoulder and carrying a silver punchbowl of bacchanalian proportions.  
  
"Fucking rich people," he said. "How many times do you think they used _this_ thing?"  
  
Cass didn't answer. He sat there and watched Dean and Dean took a lamp off a side table and set the bowl down on it and leaned over the fire and stirred the water with his hand and Cass stood up and crossed to the door. When he was at the door Dean said, "Hey Cass, could you bring some more wood?"  
  
Cass turned and looked over his shoulder. Dean had the dishtowel around the handle of the bucket and was pouring water into the bowl. He said, "What?"  
  
"Wood," Dean said. "Can you bring some more wood? I don't want this thing going out. It's still fucking freezing in here."  
  
Cass stared at him. Dean had emptied the bucket and he set it down on the hearthstone and turned back to Cass and shrugged off his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt and he paused with his hands on the third button and looked at Cass and said, "Wood?"  
  
"Right," Cass said and he turned and opened the door and let himself out into the cold hallway and closed the door behind him.  
  
He made his way through the dark house. At the foot of the stairs he paused and put his hand on the rail and stood there. The sky had cleared and a pale halfmoon shone through the cathedral window.  
  
When Cass, Castiel once, had been an angel Dean had kept up a quaint and almost amusing modesty around him the way a woman of a certain age or place would keep her hat on in church. In those days Dean would eat or swear or belch or make appalling observations in front of Castiel not only with no reserve but often with a sort of child's delight in offending but he wouldn't take off his clothes in front of Castiel and if Castiel was in a motel room with Dean and Dean was showering he would come out of the bathroom already dried and dressed as if some vague and fusty notion of pious respect advised him to act that way. In those days.  
  
Cass went into the kitchen and stepped softly around the sleeping bodies and took a half dozen logs from the woodshed and went back to the study. When he opened the door Dean was standing before the fire naked. Artlessly scrubbing his armpit with the towel. Cass stood there.  
  
"Shut the door, you're letting all the heat out."  
  
He kicked the door shut and crossed the room and put the wood down by the fire. He turned and looked up at Dean. Dean was washing the back of his neck and he was standing in profile and Cass could see the way the light lay smoothly on Dean's cheek and jaw and his skin was rosy from it and it was a long time since Cass had seen him so clean shaven. His eyes were closed and he said, "Christ, that feels good," and Cass got up and turned to go.  
  
Dean said, "You got an appointment somewhere?"  
  
"I just...I was going to go back in the kitchen."  
  
"Well, it's warmer in here. Sit down. I need to talk to you."  
  
Cass sat down on the leather couch. He folded his hands in his lap. He stared at the fire and Dean talked about the house. How long they could stay there. What might be in the surrounding hills. How much they could take with them when they left. Cass sat there and listened but didn't listen. After a while he let his eyes drift towards Dean. Dean wasn't looking at him. He was talking and washing and not looking at him. He put the towel in the water and picked it up and wrung it out and the water drops were like falling rubies in the firelight. He bent over and began washing himself between his legs as briskly and gracelessly as he would rub down a dog or a horse. He was quiet now and gazing at the opposite wall, preoccupied with something and not focused on what he was doing and Cass watched him scrub thoughtlessly at the creases between his thigh and groin and the insides of his legs.  
  
Once he would have thought little of seeing Dean naked, he had pulled Dean up out of hell and had seen him stripped of far more than clothing and a naked body had been nothing but flesh to him but once was not now. Since Castiel had fallen from grace and since he had become human he had been with twenty-seven women and two men. The women had been Laurie or Amy or Karen or Rachel but both of the men had been Dean to him or he had wanted them to be Dean. He loved Dean in the way that Dean let himself be loved and Cass had never laid a desiring hand on him yet if Dean had ever shown any sign of wanting that from him Cass would have given him anything he asked. But he hadn't. Hence the men, who had been neither one of them Dean and so there had been only two and no more.  
  
Dean stood in a slight stoop with his back to the fire and the light played on the curve of his waist and the crest of his hip. Softly dimpled with gooseflesh. The small of his back in the firelight too. The bones of his spine that cast a shadow on his skin. A few drops of water between his shoulderblades. Glittering in the fire. Dark shadow between his legs. He straightened up and put the towel in the bowl and swirled it around. The light fell on the side of his face and his cheekbone and downcast eyelashes. Cass would have done anything. Anything to touch him. Kiss him. Lie down naked with him. Anything.  
  
He stood up and said, "I'm going out for a smoke," and Dean said he could smoke in there but he was already out the door and had closed the door behind him and stumbled through the entry hall and let himself out on the porch. He went down the steps and out a ways from the house and put his back against a tree and shoved his hand down his jeans and that wasn't enough so he unfastened them and got himself in hand and took care of himself with a few quick strokes, his breath catching in his throat and biting his lip to keep from crying out. He came and heard it fall on the leaves at his feet. Something that still amazed him, this shocking release and euphoria and shame, too. He leaned his head against the tree and caught his breath. He looked up at the moon through the branches and the air was cold on his face and his hands and his cock. His legs shook.  
  
After a moment he tucked himself back in and fastened his jeans. He crouched down and wiped his hand on the dead grass. Then he did light a cigarette. He sat down. He smoked.  
  
* * *  
  
When he went back inside Dean was dressed and he glanced up at Cass and said, "Good smoke?"  
  
"Always."  
  
"You should cut that shit out. I don't think there are too many oncologists left."  
  
"Assuming I'll live long enough to get cancer."  
  
"Yeah, that is unlikely," Dean said. He picked up the bowl and carried it to the window and opened the window and pitched the water out onto the lawn. He closed the window and put the bowl back on the table and then spread the towel out on the bucket before the fire to dry. He gestured at the bowl. "You want to wash up?"  
  
"Maybe tomorrow."  
  
"Suit yourself." He stood up and stretched his back. "I'm gonna sleep in a real bed tonight," he said. "You staying up or you want me to take first watch?"  
  
"I'll stay up," Cass said. "I'm wide awake."  
  
"Well, wake me up when you're ready."  
  
"Okay."  
  
Dean left and Cass sat down. The fire was down to coals. He heard Dean collecting logs from the woodshed at the other end of the house and then going up the stairs. Dean's footsteps softly crossed the floor above him and then stopped. It was so quiet he could hear the faint creak of the bed when Dean lay down. Then silence. A whisper of ashes in the grate.  
  
He got up and went to the fire and picked up the towel. It was almost dry and he stood there and looked at it. After a while he folded it and put it in his pocket and then went out for the first watch of the night.


End file.
